Round 3.2: Mamedyarov out

Alekseev, Jakovenko, Shirov, Akopian, Ponomariov, Kamsky, Adams, Carlsen, Wang Yue and Cheparinov have qualified for the 4th round by eliminating Fressinet, Almasi, Onischuk, Malakhov, Tomashevsky, K.Georgiev, Zhou Jianchao, Domiguez, Bu Xiangzhi and Mamedyarov respectively. Six matches are playing the tiebreaks today.

World Cup Round 3.2 Results

No.	Name	Country	elo	Name	Country	elo	result	match score
1	Nisipeanu,LD	ROU	2668	Ivanchuk,V	UKR	2787	0,5	1-1
2	Bacrot,E	FRA	2695	Karjakin,S	UKR	2694	0,5	1-1
3	Alekseev,E	RUS	2716	Fressinet,L	FRA	2654	1-0	1,5-0,5
4	Bareev,E	RUS	2653	Grischuk,A	RUS	2715	0,5	1-1
5	Aronian,L	ARM	2741	Inarkiev,E	RUS	2674	0,5	1-1
6	Almasi,Z	HUN	2691	Jakovenko,D	RUS	2710	0,5	0,5-1,5
7	Onischuk,A	USA	2674	Shirov,A	ESP	2739	0-1	0,5-1,5
8	Akopian,V	ARM	2713	Malakhov,V	RUS	2690	1-0	1,5-0,5
9	Sasikiran,K	IND	2661	Macieja,B	POL	2606	0,5	1-1
10	Ponomariov,R	UKR	2705	Tomashevsky,E	RUS	2646	1-0	1,5-0,5
11	Svidler,P	RUS	2732	Rublevsky,S	RUS	2676	0,5	1-1
12	Georgiev,K	BUL	2649	Kamsky,G	USA	2714	0,5	0,5-1,5
13	Zhou Jianchao	CHN	2566	Adams,M	ENG	2729	0,5	0,5-1,5
14	Carlsen,M	NOR	2714	Dominguez,L	CUB	2683	1-0	1,5-0,5
15	Bu Xiangzhi	CHN	2692	Wang Yue	CHN	2703	0,5	0,5-1,5
16	Mamedyarov,S	AZE	2752	Cheparinov,I	BUL	2670	0,5	0,5-1,5

This means two round 4 matches are already clear: Shirov-Akopian and Wang Yue-Cheparinov.

Mamedyarov had an offday yesterday. He had to win with White but soon made some inaccuracies, and the last one was accompanied with a draw offer that meant a “match resignation”. Shirov surprised his opponent Onischuk by playing the Nooteboom Variation of the Slav Defence, quite popular at club level but an extremely rare guest between top grandmasters. The seemingly innocuous h2-h3 by White was punished severly with a model attacking game by Black. Svidler survived a worse ending against Rublevsky and Adams’ answer to Zhou Jianchou’s Catalan proved as solid as always, thus enough to eliminate the Chinese outsider. Alekseev didn’t have much trouble beating Fressinet with White after a slightly careless push of the f-pawn by the Frenchman. Akopian and Ponomariov showed fine endgame technique to bring down their opponents Malakhov and Tomashevky respectively. After the ending RB-R, yesterday the ending RN-R appeared on one of the boards in Khanty-Manskiysk. For fifty moves Sasikiran tried to win it against Macieja but he didn’t even manage to push the Black king to the back rank.

All round 3 games thus far in PGN here. Round 3.2 fragments: